


I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire

by KDblack



Series: they say someone killed the radio star [4]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Fatherhood, Gen, Intergenerational Trauma, Lucifer Magne is not okay, Lucifer's A+ parenting, alastor's rise will not be televised, deliberate pushing of an ace person's boundaries, he might be though, much to his disgust, vox is there but only for a few paragraphs, you can love someone and still hurt them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:03:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27621788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDblack/pseuds/KDblack
Summary: It's already burning, and so are we. Lucifer on love, betrayal, fatherhood, and the rise of the Radio Demon.
Relationships: Alastor & Lucifer Magne, Charlie Magne & Lucifer Magne, Lilith Magne/Lucifer Magne
Series: they say someone killed the radio star [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1548754
Comments: 115
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

They say that god is love, but no one knows love like the devil. Didn't Lucifer love the deepest? That love raised him up to the highest of heavens, and then all at once it vanished and plunged him into hell. He's found it again in the years since, but it's different now. A heart that's burnt to cinders just doesn't hold affection like one that's whole.

He says this out loud only once, to Lilith. She laughs and upends her wineglass over his head. “Lucy, darling, you're so dramatic. Everyone gets their heart broken eventually.”

“And you're bitter, Lily,” he coos, licking drops of sweetness from his cheeks. “The point is that we shouldn't have to suffer for love.”

She snorts and pours herself another drink. Then she takes a long, slow sip, rolling it around the inside of her mouth. Her lips are the raw red of a beating heart. Her teeth are white as bone. Horns curve proud above her head, and she is terribly beautiful. “How sappy. If you really believed that, you wouldn't be down here.”

He smiles, smiles, smiles, and says nothing. What can he say to her that would be heard the way he meant it? Lilith is old, almost as old as he is. She remembers the world before his father put on a friendlier face. But she was human back then, chafing under the unfair expectations of a man who thought himself above her when he was simply more beloved by the system. He's come to understand that her suffering was real then and the scars of it are certainly real now, but her love... 

No human has ever loved like an angel. Born for nothing but to serve the one who gave them life, to carry messages without understanding their meaning, to sing praises to one who has done so little to deserve them. It's a simple life. Pure. Without thought, without meaning.

But Lucifer thought. And he sought meaning. Therefore, he fell. They say he fell because of his pride. That he's trapped in hell because he can't let go of his ego for five fucking minutes. They are wrong. Lucifer fell because he loved his father and did not understand that his father did not love him back. 

'Don't give mortals free will,' he said. 'They're cruel and shiftless things. They'll turn on you.' And he was right, or dear old dad wouldn't be sending so many mortals down here. It's a rain of rejected shells. Each body that hits the infernal ground and becomes something other is another point in Lucifer's favour, but oh well, too late now.

No mortal heartbreak can ever compare to the pain of an angel betrayed.

“It's a pity,” he sighs later, also to Lilith. She's a vicious little thing, but who else would he talk about his feelings with? His subjects? Ha. What a repulsive thought. “I thought hell would be more interesting once the damned starting coming through.”

She raises a sculpted eyebrow. “Isn't it, sweetheart? Just look outside. All those lights, all those dreams.” A smile sweet as cyanide. “Everything filthy is gathering here. Isn't it delicious? Doesn't it make you happy?”

Lucifer chuckles to himself. “I'm happy that you're happy, darling.”

“Hey, I give the pet names in this relationship.”

“My apologies!” He gives her a shallow bow. “I have clearly overstepped my bounds.”

“Damn right.” She leans back in her chair, a delicate little thing composed of coiled snakes and fire, and breathes out a long plume of smoke. “Find a hobby, Lucy. You're starting to get maudlin.”

“I'm hardly even tipsy,” he counters, but he's considering it. Reluctantly. 

Over the next several centuries he comes to accept that she had a point. The demon population is booming, hell is thriving, and Lilith is everywhere, doing everything. Fashion, crafts, cooking, torture – if it's out there, she's interested. Even if it's something that could never exist outside of hell. Especially if it's something that could never exist outside of hell. Meanwhile, Lucifer stays home, watching Charlie grow up before his eyes. There's nothing pitiful or regrettable about spending time with their daughter. But she isn't a happy girl. Or rather, she's a very happy girl, but she isn't happy here. The older she grows, the more he wonders.

“Was I wrong?” he asks no one in the still air of an Extermination night. The sky is filled with bright wings. No demon in their right mind would be outside. But Lucifer was an angel once, and part of that precious holiness lingers still. Twisted? Yes. Corrupted? Of course. Even so, he has nothing to fear from the touch of the Exorcists. That searing light hurts, of course, but it's only pain in the end. “Could she have had a better world than this to grow up in?”

If the Exorcists hear him, they have no answers. They probably don't care. Lucifer stays out on the balcony as the blood flies and screams drift upward like offerings. Only when the light fades and the last spear has been thrown does he finally go inside.

Charlie is waiting for him, eyes huge and wounded. She has an idea. A terrible, awful, stupid idea. Lucifer laughs for fifteen solid minutes. And then, when he realizes she's serious, he sets her on fire.

“I don't understand it!” he rants to Lilith's answering machine later, when their stubborn daughter has been reduced to equally stubborn ashes. He's gathered her up into a soup can, which he juggles from hand to hand. The metal is scorching hot and will be until she gives up, at which point he'll let her resume her usual form. Unfortunately, Charlie is the child of the original rebel and the original demon of mortal origin. Her being nice doesn't make her any less genetically predisposed to going 'my way or the high way' to everyone else, including her loving parents. “She won't listen! That bullheadedness is from your side of the family.”

Six hours later, Lilith calls him back just to cackle. “That's my girl! Put her on, babycakes.”

“I'm afraid I can't,” he says without remorse. “She doesn't have a mouth right now.”

“Did you set her on fire?” his dear wife asks.

“Yes.”

“Good man. Put her on anyway, I got some shit to tell her.”

Lucifer holds the phone up to the burning soup can and tries not to listen in on the following one-sided conversation. It's not out of any particular desire to give them privacy. Lilith gets mean when the people she loves do stupid things, that's all. The can begins to tremble, shaking harder and harder until he has no choice but to press it to his chest in a hug. Finally, Lilith hangs up with a sharp click, the can starts shaking in earnest. If Charlie had a mouth, she'd surely be sobbing. His suit smoulders as he gives the lid a gentle kiss.

“There, there, Charlie,” he murmurs. “We're cruel because we love you. Better you learn how the world works from us than from people who don't care at all.”

The can rattles, then goes quiet. But the heat remains. Even through decades of pleading, cajoling, screaming, and more brutal cut-downs from Lilith, Charlie remains resolute. It's admirable. It's frustrating. It feels like looking in a mirror. If Lucifer's father had tried to talk him down instead of ripping the divinity from him and locking him away, he probably would've reacted exactly the same as Charlie. Some things can't be solved with words.

Lucifer is proud because it's the only armour he has left. It stings that pride to admit he can't change his daughter's mind. But he loves her too much to keep her ashes on the mantelpiece forever. He dumps her ashes out and watches them form a little pile on the floor, glowing with heat, radiating determination.

“I hope you know what you're getting yourself into, Charlie,” he says. And then he lets her go.

She pulls herself together all at once, going from crumbling dust to a young woman in the blink of an eye. Her eyes are raw from tears she hasn't shed. Her jaw is set. At her sides, her fists are trembling. The first words she says are, “I'm going to do it, dad. You can't stop me.”

He smiles, smiles, smiles. It's all he can do. “It's your mistake to make.”

Once upon a time, Lucifer made a mistake, too. The difference is that his mistake wasn't his judgement of mortals. No, he stands by that particular decision, and hell has done nothing to shake his certainty that humans are fundamentally rotten creatures. His mistake was assuming that angels – that dear old dad – were any different. Lucifer adores Lilith because she's the same brand of cynical, broken thing as he is, but there's only one good thing in this world and she's standing in front of him, her head just reaching his chin. 

“It's not a mistake,” Charlie says. And then she turns around and walks out with her shoulders trembling and her head held high. The house is terribly empty without her. But it would be worse if he tried forcing her to stay.

"Be safe out there," he says, though he knows she won't.

Lucifer waits until she's gone before he conjures up a chair to collapse in. Then he laughs because all his tears have burned away. When he can breathe again, he'll tell Lilith, and they'll commiserate over their daughter's inability to learn from her parents. Right now, there's nothing he can do but let his heart of cinders bleed smoke into the open air. 

If you love something, let it go. Let it go waltzing into the jaws of inevitability. When it drags its tattered remains back, like it was always going to, it's yours.

Yes, he thinks, if anyone's an expert on love, it's the devil.


	2. Chapter 2

Lucifer missed Alastor's arrival in hell. In his defence, he was busy – Charlie had just moved out, and Lilith was on tour on the other side of the pit, and things were... difficult. But excuses have never justified anything. The truth is that Lucifer was too busy drinking and feeling sorry for himself to notice the descent of the most interesting soul hell has ever played host to. 

Yes, he is including himself in that sweeping statement. He's a dull, broken-down wreck of a man, abandoned by his daughter and shriveling up in his wife's absence like a flower left out in the sun. Who in their right mind would want to spend time with him?

Even the bartenders keep trying to kick him out. He has to eviscerate them. Then he remembers how disappointed Charlie would be if she could see him, and he has to crack open every bottle in the place to wash the memory away. And rip open everyone who tries to stop him. Forget, forget, forget. If you can't forget, smile and pretend it never hurt in the first place. These are the rules for getting by in hell. Why else would the demon population be stuck in an endless cycle of sin and self-destruction? Why else would Lucifer be so terribly alone? 

He spends Alastor's first few weeks in hell yearning for the old days, when he was freshly fallen, still numb, still burning with frustrated idealism. Back when the weight of a pointless eternity hadn't yet sunk in. Back when he and Lilith still thought there was something they could do, even from hell. Lilith still does, he supposes, though she's set her sights lower now. Less 'break free of our prison and overthrow the system' and more 'create something new and entertaining within the confines of our cells.' He doesn't get it, but it works for her. Perhaps it's the leftover mortality that makes her satisfied with small steps. Lucifer was never mortal. He either gives everything in pursuit of his goals or nothing at all. For a long, long time, Charlie's been the only thing he's had to fight for. Now she's gone and he's adrift.

Why is hell so terribly boring?

“It's a problem, sweetheart,” Lilith tells him over the phone. She's always talking to him over the phone these days. He could teleport straight to her location, but what the point? She's always in the spotlight, juggling three things at a time, and his powers aren't exactly subtle. It would only draw unwanted attention. Everyone wants to know the weaknesses of the rulers of hell. “You need to get a hobby.”

He sighs, still smiling, and leans back against the smashed bartop. This used to be a fairly nice establishment. Now the owner's crushed under his boot, the patrons are dead or gone, and everything's ruined. There's a metaphor in that, but Lucifer refuses to look for it. “I know, Lily. It's not exactly easy to find one.”

“Sure it is,” Lilith says. “Just find something that piques your interest. Knitting, cooking, music, interior design – you name it.”

Lucifer makes a face. “Ugh. All of that sounds like a lot of work.”

“Then try something new, dearest. Perhaps something to do with technology? They're coming up with all sorts of neat things upstairs.”

“I don't care what the humans are doing, Lily.” He barely even cares what the demons are doing. 

He can hear her rolling her eyes. “Then perish, I guess.”

“You're so mean to me,” he says mildly.

“You love it.”

It's true, he does. But she has so many other things competing for space in her cold, black heart. He fears he'll die of loneliness like a rabbit in her absence. Maybe he should pick up a hobby. But it can't be something he can do with his hands. The problem with being an entity that was created rather than born is that he comes pre-programmed with too many skills. There are so few things he can pick up and not find he's already mastered. This is why he prefers to consume things rather than create them – less risk of getting his hopes up.

“Maybe an instrument,” he muses. “What do you think of the accordion?”

The phone hisses static. He lowers the receiver and gives it a quizzical look. Is that – no. It's not Lilith's power that's suffusing the phone lines, turning simple off-white into deep, vivid red. Her presence is sultry and sickly sweet: a poisoned apple, a snake pressed against warm skin. Whoever this is, they feel... electric. The crackle of lightning in a bottle. A smile that goes on forever. Lucifer racks his brain, but he can't think of a single demon with any power who might bring out that sensation in him. Across the bar, a little black box begins to screech the same awful notes as the phone.

Lucifer tilts his head and lets his eyes fall to half-mast. “Well, now, who might you be?”

A sudden burst of static. A cheery intro tune in a bouncy, unfamiliar style. Then the screaming begins. 

Time stops working. The evening stretches out in an eternity of sheer agony. Shrieking, the sound of tearing flesh, threats that become pleas that become the broken mewling of a brain-melting down. Those voices are familiar. He's known those assholes for centuries. They sprang up around him and used his shadow as cover while they indulged themselves in vicious sins. He's only thought ever thought of them to dismiss them as dull, dull, dull. 

But this? It's a scene Lucifer has only ever found in his dearest nightmares. The screams make his smile feel genuine again. He can taste the blood on his lips. All the while the bright, energetic voice of a stranger narrates, sliding from professional to chirpy to sultry and sadistic at the drop of a hat. 

It's been so long since Lucifer was able to get lost in bloodshed. All his dreams are burnt to ashes and his wells of meaning have run dry. Sure, he hurts people, but at this point, it's just habit. There's nothing left in him but pain for the sake of pain, and that's enough for anyone looking in from the outside, but from here it's so very boring. An angel, even a fallen one, needs a cause. And for all the depravity humanity has to offer, he's never found something like this before.

Passion. Dedication. Vengeance and art in equal measure. None of these victims are innocent, but there's precious little justice to be found in this performance. What replaces it is a sordid sense of irony. The narrator inviting you to laugh at this fucked up world with him. A prayer spoken in the crack of breaking bones and buzzing speakers, aimed at the speaker himself, mixed with the joyous frenzy of slaughter.

When it finally dies down and the black box clicks off, Lucifer is actually disappointed. 

“Well, now,” Lilith says, her line restored, “that was interesting. What do you think, babycakes?”

Lucifer only realizes he was holding his breath when he tries to whistle softly and can't. He inhales deeply and fixes that. “I think I've found my hobby.”

Chiming laughter. “Have fun, dear heart.”

“I will,” he promises and hangs up. Then he hauls himself to his feet, banishes the blood clinging to him, and strolls outside, still whistling. He has a monster to hunt down.


	3. Chapter 3

Hell changes you. Breaks you, really, but shush, mustn't scare the fresh meat. Brittle souls shatter. Stiff souls become unyielding. Resourceful souls become opportunists. Whatever flaws you have, whether they're worn proudly on your sleeve, hunched over defensively, or hidden down at the bottom of your soul as though they'd disappear if you just buried them deep enough – they come out in full force once you enter the inferno. To put it simply, once you come downstairs, you're never quite the same.

Some of that is by design. Hell is meant to be a place of torment, after all. Torture the likes of which could never be executed on earth. Quite the promise! One it doesn't quite live up to. Lucifer probably bears most of the blame there. After all, this prison was made for him long before any mortal tasted that forbidden fruit. He's hogging all the suffering. There simply isn't enough to go around. 

What a shame.

Of course, not all the changes are internal. The most obvious ones, or so he's told, are surface-level. He's never been entirely sure why. Are mortals really so short-sighted that a simple coat of scales or fur and a few minor structural overhauls render someone unrecognizable? Even if that person is yourself?

The answer to that question is yes, apparently. Makes it easier to split existence into a before and after. Lilith certainly doesn't act like the person she was before she grew horns, though she loathes talking about it, and she got lucky there. Most folks who find themselves in hell are rather less humanoid than she is. Horns and tails, sharp teeth and cloven hooves, the scales of serpents and the eyes of cyclopes – the damned are no longer human. They don't look like humans, they don't need like humans, they don't even feel like humans to Lucifer's raw nerves. So why do they still act like humans? 

There is a point to this little rant, promise. This is the mindset with which Lucifer begins his hunt for the entity now affectionately dubbed the Radio Demon. It's also the entire reason why, after three weeks of sniffing around like a search dog, he still hasn't found the fucker. 

“I don't understand it,” he tells Lilith after another fruitless search. She's not home, of course – still out on tour with some young heartthrob band Lucifer doesn't know and doesn't care to know – but he's home and she picked up as soon as she could. It's almost like having company. “He's not anywhere. It's like he's some kind of ghost!”

Lilith chuckles. After a second, Lucifer chuckles too. A ghost in hell? Who would've thunk it. “Sugar, where have you been looking, exactly?”

He has a whole list. She listens while he runs down every moderately safe but inexpensive slum, every corner of the informal fresh meat hunting grounds, every place a powerful demon might stash someone strong but inexperienced. And then she says, “Well, no wonder you can't find him. You're going about this all wrong.”

“Then please enlighten me, Lily. I'm all ears, I assure you.”

“You're treating him like any other newbie,” Lilith says. “Clearly he isn't. So stop thinking like fresh meat and start thinking like a monster.”

Well, when she puts it that way... “I do believe you might be onto something.”

“Of course I am,” she purrs. “Now put the phone down and don't call me for another week. I'm booked solid.”

Ah, publicity. The horror. The horror. Lucifer shudders theatrically and wishes her well. “Have fun out there! Remember, Charlie might be watching, so try not to eat your costars unless they really piss you off.” 

Lilith sighs deeply. “I make no promises.”

Judging by that tone, she'll be shoving pieces of her supporting act down her throat within the hour. Oh well. They knew the risks when they signed up and still decided to try and shove the queen of hell around on her own stage. All things considered, they have it coming. Lucifer puts the whole affair out of his mind and sets to work thinking like a monster. It's all terribly simple after that.

Gluttony is not a circle for the faint of heart. It may be only the third of nine, but that doesn't make its blood-paved streets any easier to bear. Here is the Cannibal Colony, standing beside cafes selling every delicacy imaginable, street-side drug vendors peddling wares that would kill a living mortal stone-dead, all of it haunted by toothy crows and hungry foliage. Some parts look almost normal. Carefully manicured lawns, storefronts with uniforms and fancy signs, employees who smile with their eyes as well as their teeth. Those parts are the worst.

The newly descended don't gather in Gluttony, or at least, they don't for long. Lingering here is a good way to find yourself run down and eaten alive, bite by agonizing bite. Lucifer would know; at this point, he's explored every inch of his prison. There's not a stone on those streets he doesn't have memorized. He doesn't bother to take the scenic route. Instead, Lucifer blinks out of existence at home and blinks into existence in the heart of the labyrinth that weaves behind the pretty storefronts. A vast network of alleyways stretches out in all directions like spiderweb. 

Mortal souls avoid this place. It was designed to be confusing, borderline impossible to navigate. For him, it's easy. It would seem he's no longer the only one to think so.

Before he opens his eyes, he can hear it. The crackling of an upbeat radio. Whatever it's playing is strangely catchy. It's no polka, of course – the invention of that genre came closest to making Lucifer forgive humanity for existing – but still. There's a life to the tune, a joyful peal that stirs the feet, like the frantic beating of a heart. An adrenaline rush without fear. Dance music. A fitting soundtrack for the Radio Demon.

His quarry is so close he can taste it. And oh, the Radio Demon is so new – new enough that the stain of mortality hasn't quite worn off – but if you weren't looking for it, you'd never be able to tell. Not with the level of raw power seething around him. Already he feels like an ancient demon, one of Lucifer's once-trusted ex-soldiers, dripping with cheerful cruelty and all but completely free of regret. It's not a matter of excuses or justifications. He's simply embraced who and what he is.

That's unheard of. That's interesting.

Lucifer blinks out of existence again. This time, he presses against the invisible bars of his prison, just a little. For a second, the whole world greys out. The tall, thin redhead making his way down one of the alleys pauses in his tracks, a bright smile frozen on his face. Lucifer reaches out and plucks him out of one reality and into another. All worlds have layers, wrinkles, and folds where time passes differently and the rules are slightly askew. After all the time Lucifer's spent trying to break out of it, hell has more than most. He pulls the Radio Demon just a little closer to his real body, the one that's been bound and suffering since before the concept of hell existed, and then, while he's at it, pries that delightfully cruel aura from its owner. Immediately his head fills with information and his ears fill with the joyful wailing of trumpets. The sound is as delightful as the flicker of fear in the Radio Demon's – no, Alastor's – red-on-red eyes.

“They say the devil has all the best tunes, but I do believe you're infringing on my territory,” Lucifer says. “What did you call this? Swing? Nice. It's no polka, of course, but still – catchy.” 

Alastor's shoulders are thin and bony. Under the artfully tattered suit, he looks starved. And yet he smiles, smiles, smiles at Lucifer, unwilling to show weakness, for all the wrong reasons. His stained mess of a soul is a nest of writhing tendrils, grabbing desperately for his stolen power – his stolen music. It's fine. Lucifer will give it back eventually if this conversation goes as well as he hopes. 

It doesn't. It goes even better. Lucifer laughs all the way home. 

All these years waiting for someone to prove him right, and finally, _finally,_ it's arrived with bright eyes and a broad American accent. Lucifer knew that free will was a mistake. He knew that eventually, a human would become far worse than any demon. He _knew._ Alastor hasn't even been down here a month and already hell is shaking in its boots. The hunter becomes the hunted, except he doesn't, because there's nothing and nobody monstrous enough to bring down this deer. Except for Lucifer. For now. If he was in his right mind, he'd be afraid of Alastor, too. But he is so, so old and so, so tired. He wants to see this house of cards come burning down.

Ah, it's almost funny. So much power, so much potential, all of it wrapped around a stick-thin bundle of flesh, bone, and manic energy. It was all Lucifer could do to keep his hands mostly to himself. But Alastor so clearly loathed being touched, was more afraid of being manhandled than he was of losing his powers, so Lucifer had to content himself with pressing Alastor's limits. Psh, _had to,_ as though that wasn't its own reward. You can only break someone once, but you can fuck with them forever.

Needling the future most dangerous thing in hell is going to blow up in Lucifer's face eventually. He can't wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is very late and I am tired. If you want more of this, check out [The Devil's Swing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21486769). G'night.


	4. Chapter 4

All things considered, Lilith puts up with Lucifer's little crush – okay, not so little, it's probably visible from space – for as long as she could be expected to. Longer, even. Several decades have passed by the time she puts her foot down. 

“Lucy, darling,” she says, cutting off Lucifer right in the middle of a very funny story, “you need to introduce me to him.”

Lucifer shuts his mouth, faintly disappointed. It really is a very funny story. That old windbag Sir Pentious is in it, as is one of Lucifer's other attempts at getting a hobby: Lu Lu World. Also, Alastor wears a ponytail in this one, which may be why it takes Lucifer a moment to switch gears. “Lily, you hate meeting my friends.”

“Because you don't have friends, you have utter lunatics that you surround yourself with for the entertainment value. This one is different.”

“Really?” Lucifer asks. “Whatever gave you that impression?”

“If he was one of your usual conquests, you'd have stopped toying with him a long time ago and I'd be consoling you about your awful taste in sinners.”

“True,” Lucifer admits. “Will you be coming back soon, then?”

She laughs, bright and airy. “God, no. You'll just have to send him to see me.”

“Doubt it'll work. He's not exactly inclined to do as I say.”

“What, you can't just order one of your faithful subjects to pay a visit to your queen on tour?”

For a moment, Lucifer seriously considers it. Then he laughs until he falls over.

“Not in the cards, huh?” Lilith asks, sounding amused.

“Not a chance,” he chuckles. “That guy doesn't do as he's told, especially if television is involved. Unless he thinks his life is on the line, so to speak, and even that's a crapshoot. You'll have to either leave the limelight for a few hours or lure him out somehow. Or challenge him. Hit him where it hurts. I believe in you.”

She hums. “I'll take your word for it, sweetheart.”

“Oh dear,” Lucifer says. “That's your thinking voice. What are you up to, Lily?”

“Nothing at all, honeybuns. How dare you suspect me of scheming.”

“Of course. Perish the thought.”

Less than an hour later, Lilith holds Katie Killjoy at gunpoint to declare a press conference, where she announces that she'll be holding an eight hour live, televised performance dedicated to radios, demons, and all combinations thereof, starting immediately. Lucifer stares at his TV with his mouth slack for several seconds. Then he starts laughing again.

Charlie calls him immediately. “Dad, what the hell?”

“I had nothing to do with this,” he stutters out between chuckles.

“As if!” A sharp intake of breath, followed by muffled voices. That girl of hers is trying to calm her down. Such a good influence, that Vaggie. “Look, you need to stop her before things get out of hand.”

“Search your heart, Charlie. I think you'll find I don't need to do anything.”

“That's the Radio Demon she's picking a fight with!” Charlie screeches. A burst of flame erupts from the receiver. 

Lucifer blows it out and rolls over, content to remain sprawled out on the ground. “I don't know if you've noticed this before, but your mother does what she pleases. That's why I fell in love with her.”

Charlie growls down the phone line. “There's no way mom would interrupt one of her tours for something as dumb as this! You must've put her up to this. Unless–” Her breath catches. “Is she doing this for you?”

“Darling, I'm hurt. Do you really think I'd ask your mother to give a televised tribute to a man who loathes television?”

“Then you can stop her! Just – just tell her you appreciate the sentiment, but it was a mistake!”

“Oh, Charlie.” Lucifer sighs. “Clearly being out on your own has addled your memory. Your mother doesn't make mistakes.” Most people know better than to imply otherwise.

“You can't let her do this!” Charlie... begs? Yes, that's definitely begging. Something in Lucifer's dry chest twinges at the thought. No child of his should ever have to beg. But in this world, things rarely happen as they should. 

“I've never once let your mother do anything,” he says. “Now be a doll and hang up. I do believe Vox has finally noticed what she's up to.”

Charlie starts panicking and screeching again. Lucifer rolls his eyes and hangs up for her. On the screen, the image turns into snow and static before abruptly clearing up onto an image of Vox's flatscreen face. Ugh, really? Is he broadcasting this over every station? Judging by the scenery Lucifer can just make out behind Vox's steely shoulders, he's not in the studio Lilith hijacked. A wise decision, not that it will save him.

“What is this?” he hisses, his voice an angry, distorted squeal. “A tribute to the Radio Demon? On my station?”

Really, it's not even Vox's station. This one belongs to Lilith by right of conquest. Vox is just being a sore loser. And a drama queen.

“Unacceptable!”

And now he's cliché. Lucifer rests his cheek on the floor and watches, bored, as Vox rambles. 'Blah blah blah I am insecure and horny and I'm going to lash out at anyone who wants Alastor's attention because I don't have the courage to man up and get rejected properly.'

How boring.

In the space between one moment and the next, Lucifer blinks out of existence and pops up again behind Vox, just out of range of the camera the overlord is yelling into. Vox notices too late. He breaks off in the middle of a sentence and whirls around just in time to get the business end of Lucifer's cane in his pixelized mouth. 

“That's enough of that,” Lucifer says mildly, stepping into view. “No jumped-up overlord is going to interrupt Lilith's tribute streams.”

Vox tries to say something. It comes out as jumbled static. Lucifer laughs at him and kicks him out of the way. Dumbass should've known how this was going to go. There is a reason Lucifer is still the king of hell.

“Now, now, none of that. Settle down and watch the show.”

Another glitchy protest. Lucifer's pretty sure this one was just swearing. How rude. He twirls his staff theatrically and twists. With a dreadful sound of tearing metal, an apple tree punches out through Vox's sternum. It surges upward, branches twisting into the shape of a chair. Lucifer sprawls in it before it's even finished growing. Then he snaps his fingers and sets the broadcast back to Lilith's performance. She's stunning in the spotlight, singing as though she never even noticed the interruption, but everyone else on the make-shift stage is wide-eyed and trembling.

Vox lets out another shriek. Lucifer puts his shoe through that damn screen and settles down to watch. As long as he keeps his foot where it is, Vox won't get talkative. That means there's nothing left but to wait for Alastor to react. 

Alastor lasts through Lilith's sexy reinterpretations of a mournful human song called Radio Gaga, three cheery odes to radio technology written by an infatuated imp, and a nightmarish little ditty simply called The Night The Radio Killed – unsurprisingly about Alastor himself. He makes it through plaintive wails for the sounds of murder to stop and steamy pleas for lost lovers to listen to over the airwaves. But eventually, something has to give. Halfway through a sultry rendition of another tune stolen straight from the living world, Video Killed The Radio Star, the studio is bathed in crimson red. Lilith continues doing what she does best: sing like her life depends on it while making everyone around her question their sexuality. The rest of the crew shrieks and scatters. 

The picture distorts. It doesn't fade to black and white snow the way it did when Vox touched it. Alastor's touch is more distinctive than that. Wave upon wave of red washes over the screen, accompanied by a blurring of perceptions. Everything echoes like it's coming in on over the radio. Alastor himself makes his entrance by blinking into existence, a casual show of power and skill that Lucifer doubts he understands the implications of. 

For all his brilliance, Alastor has a tendency to underestimate himself. He likes to assume that anyone could do what he can, if they just put to their mind to it. He is often wrong.

Lilith turns toward him, holding one last note out as she does. The red aura stops advancing halfway across the room. The TV won't show Alastor's face clearly, but Lilith's is clear as day. Lucifer can see the exact moment she sees what Alastor looks like under the layers of distortion and seething, carefully-tailored power.

'What the hell,' she mouths, making brief eye contact with Lucifer through the screen. 'That's not a twink, that's a famine victim.'

She's not wrong. Even covered head-to-toe, Alastor is a frail little thing. Lilith is taller than him – her cheeks fuller, her shoulders broader, her legs more powerful, more, more, more. It's an unholy vitality, yes, but also, the Radio Demon is just delicate. It's funny. Under the distortion, he looks more 'human' than she does. 

Here's a general rule of thumb: the sinners that still look more human than beast tend to be the happy ones. The happy ones are always the worst. But isn't it more fun that way?

The blurry outline of Alastor's grows wider. He must've caught that little tidbit, too. When he speaks, his voice is almost too distorted to make out. “Good afternoon, your majesty! Terribly sorry for dropping by so suddenly, but I was beginning to get the impression you wanted to see me!”

“Ooo, a smart one,” Lilith croons. “I like that.”

“Do you,” Alastor says flatly.

“Of course. It's good for Lucifer to have someone to talk philosophy with. I'd do it myself, but...” Her shoulders ripple in a shrug. “Been there, done that. We won't be resolving our disagreements anytime soon.”

“Now there's a pity. Communication is the backbone of any relationship!”

They're not circling each other on that stage, exactly, but they definitely aren't not circling each other. It's a pretty sight. Lilith sweeps her hair to the side, her stage smile intact. “Aren't you a nice little homewrecker.”

“That's uncalled for!”

She raises a delicate brow. “Oh? You're not planning on stealing my husband and becoming the new queen?”

“Absolutely not!” Alastor cackles. Then, all at once, his tone levels out. “You're welcome to it. My sights aren't set so low.”

Ouch. Lucifer would be hurt. You know, if he cared.

For a moment, the two of them stare at each other: silent, eyes locked, wearing identical leering grins. Then Lilith tosses her head back and laughs in earnest. “Oh, you are cute! I can see why he likes you.” 

Alastor's ears twitch just a bit. Poor boy, is he concerned? He is, isn't he?

“But I'm afraid you're not my type,” she concludes. “I'm not into power-hungry guys. Too backstabby for my taste.”

“Terribly sorry to hear that!” the Radio Demon says in his bombastic announcer voice while every line of his body screams relief. “Your marriage must be rather awkward.”

She laughs again, looking faintly surprised. “You have met Lucifer, right? That man wouldn't know a lust for power if it threw him down and had its way with him.” 

Ouch again. But she's still not wrong. She told Lucifer once that there's a difference between powerful and power-hungry. The difference, apparently, lies in what you do after you've achieved power. The merely powerful may rest on their laurels, go do something else, or worse, start cleaning up the mess they left behind. The power-hungry immediately start planning their next victory. They never stop, they never rest. Lilith is like that, and so are the rest of the overlords. It seems exhausting. Lucifer idles in his gilded halls while hell is ruled by junkies craving their next hit.

Where does Alastor, careful and cunning, with the eyes of a starving beast, fit into this picture?

“I'll take your word for it!” Alastor declares. He's still circling, but his ears have stopped twitching. He's realized what Lilith wants. “I must say, if you simply wanted to talk, you could have sent an invitation through less irritating means.”

“But I like irritating people,” Lilith says. “It's good to remind them who's in charge.”

“Excellent point!” He inclines his head sharply. As always, his smile is flawless. If her words have drawn blood, he won't show it. But somehow, Lucifer doubts they did. For all Alastor's thirst for power, he's never been sensitive about it.

More barbs are exchanged. More implications are laid. It's a conversational war zone. Lucifer could watch this all day.

“You were born for hell,” Lilith says at last, sounding faintly surprised. “You're going to throw everything off-kilter. There are so few creatures truly meant to be down here.”

For a second, she might be talking to Lucifer directly. He doesn't know if he agrees with her on this. The truth is that, born for hell or not, Alastor didn't have to end up like this, and neither did he. There's countless hours of poetry dedicated to the tragedy of Lucifer's fall. With time, there will be a similar memorial to Alastor, at least down here. Lucifer has faith in this, if nothing else. But what would Lilith know of tragedy? Lucifer always did what he thought was right and it cast him into perdition. Lilith looked at goodness, saw that it rang false, and turned her back. She walked into damnation of her own free will. It's never had quite the same hold on her that it does on everyone else.

Lucifer loves her for making that choice. That doesn't mean he understands it. She's an alien thing, standing under the spotlight, banishing Alastor's shadows with her own piercing glow. They make a pretty picture, the two of them: him a frail red shadow wreathed in crackling screams and glowing symbols that burn themselves into the brain, her a proud column of ice beneath a fall of searing white-blonde hair and a smile that drips madness. Not quite opposite, not yet equal, but the promise is tantalizing. For a moment, a future stretches out before Lucifer – Lilith at his right side, Alastor at his left, both of them poisoning the air with manic energy. He's wanted few things more than this.

On the screen, Alastor's smiles shrinks until it's within human proportions. A cute, gentlemanly expression. “I'll take that as a compliment! Now, if that's all, I'll be off. Until we meet again!”

Lilith nods regally. Alastor gives her a theatrical bow and vanishes. He takes the crimson power with him, but the studio is still a mess. And Lucifer – 

Lucifer closes his eyes and banishes the image. There's no point dreaming or making plans in hell. What comes will come. What does not, will not. It's a hard lesson to learn.

Even so, he smiles, and – for the first time in years – wonders what horrors tomorrow will bring.


End file.
